/03 

H95 




UBRARY O^CONGRESS.I 

Chap. .B,.LP.3...... 

She/f .•^.hf.RS'_ 



^UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



(~-^'7y^^r^^*^rytMA^ ^^^^^>^ 



SOME PRE-COLUMBIAN 

Discoveries of America 

By GEORGE ROGERS HOWELL 



READ BEFORE THE 



^ ALBANY INSTITUTE, 
'2^ 



"5^ June, 1893. 






SOME PRE-COLUMBIAN DISCOVERIES OF AMERICA. 

By George Rogers Howell. 

[Read before the Albany Institute, June, 1893.] 

Was America known to the ancients ? That is a question often 
asked, but one so vague as to be incapable of a single categorical 
answer. The form of the question embraces all nations and all time 
to the fall of the Roman Empire in A. D. 476. The existence of this 
•continent may have been known to one nation or a part of its inhabi- 
tants while the rest of the world were entirely ignorant of it. Or it 
might have been known to some at one period and afterward all defi- 
nite knowledge of its existence may have perished. Supposing the 
question were asked one thousand years hence, if the existence of 
Terra del Fuego or the Victoria Nyanza was known to the world in the 
19th Century. As a matter of fact more than one half of the adult 
inhabitants of the globe to-day never heard of these names. But we 
have books, maps, schools, big trading vessels visiting every land, 
scientists searching every corner of the earth, and newspapers eager 
to record the last geographical discovery. Many of the nations of 
antiquity, and all of them in their earlier history had no schools, and 
none of them at any time had what we call books or newspapers ; no 
printing press to diffuse intelligence, no railroads for swift transpor- 
tation over long distances, no telegraph to cause the world to throb at 
one impulse or fire at one spark. Wealthy nobles had magnificent 
palaces, rich garments and dainty foods and works of art, and all of 
these equal to the best that exist on earth to-day. But Rome with her 
three millions in Augustan days on a moonless night was enshrouded 
in a darkness, save for the torchlights of a company of revellers, as 
dense as that of an Indian village in the wilds of Dakotah. In such a 
world geographical knowledge was necessarily confined primarily to 
merchants and traders by the sea. The sailor was the first discoverer. 
His employer, the merchant or trader was the next to learn of a new 
discovery as a field of private speculation in trade. If these people 
kept their secrets to themselves, as they sometimes did, the geographer, 
and consequently his readers, who were at best but a small fraction of 
the inhabitants, were none the wiser for the discovery. Thus it hap- 
pens that the real question at issue, whether the American continent 
was ever visited in ancient times, even that is not so easily answered 
by the first investigation of the works of an ancient geographer. 



2 Some Pre-Columbian Discoveries op America. 

Let us continue our elimination. Discovery of new trans-oceanic 
lands could be made by those nations only that dwelt by the sea. 
The first gi-eat empires in Central Asia whose splendor is still the 
wonder of the world are therefore ruled entirely out of our considera- 
tion. Egypt the next to arrive to prominence in wealth, power and 
learning was never a maritime power. Her vessels of trade and war 
were mostly confined to the Nile. Neither Greek nor Roman vessels 
are known to have sailed beyond the Canary Isles, and even there made 
but few visits. Their fleets for the most part were limited to the navi- 
gation of the Mediterranean. Both nations were and have ever been 
essentially landsmen. Perhaps their sunny climes have always fur- 
nished too many attractions to permit the growth of desires for new 
lands or to stimulate the courage to brave the perils and discomforts 
of robust storms at sea. The Germans of Caesar and Tacitus rarely 
passed the limits of the North or the Zuyder seas. Of the Tuscans 
but few traces have come to us of the high civilization and wealth that 
they probably attained. The Roman Empire seems to have trampled 
almost every vestige of them out of existence. But we mention them 
later. There remains but one other nation of all antiquity in the west 
of Europe for consideration and that is the Phoenician But in the 
history of that little busy, bustling, tumultuous nation, we shall find the 
first discoverers of this Continent, — Phoenicia and her Colonies, espe- 
cially that at Carthage on the northern coast of Africa, and if, as it is 
claimed, the Phoenicians also colonized the western coast of Ireland, 
why they have been coming here ever since. 

Now that we have narrowed down the possibility of the discovery to 
one or possibly two nations, it seems proper to take notice of two ob- 
jections to any theory of any nation of antiquity accomplishing this' 
mighty deed of crossing the Atlantic. 

The first thought which naturally arises in one's mind on consider- 
ing this question is, that if the ancient writers did have a knowledge 
of the existence of this continent, it would certainly appear in their 
works. Geographers would have described it, historians have narrated 
voyages hither, poets would have sung of it as they did of Scythia, 
Ethiopia and Ultima Thule. To this it may be answered that those 
who visited had reasons for not writing of it, and even for carefully 
concealing their knowledge of it from the rest of the world. This ob- 
servation is made in reference to the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, 
and the evidence of their discoveries will be given hereafter. The 
point now is, how they managed to prevent the diffusion of their 
knowledge of trans-oceanic lands through the other nations of the 
earth. On this Aristotle, or whoever wrote the treatise ascribed to 
him, entitled " the Book of Wonders," says : " When the Cartha- 



Some Pre-Columbian Discoveries of America. 3 

ginians, who were masters of the western ocean, observed that many- 
traders and other men, attracted by the fertility of the soil and the 
pleasant climate, had fixed there their homes, they feared that 
the knowledge of this island [i. e., some distant land, perhaps the 
American continent] should reach other nations, a great concourse to 
it of men from the various lands of the earth would follow; that the 
conditions of life, then so happy, on that island would not only be un- 
favorably affected, but the Carthaginian empire itself suffer injury, 
and the domiidon of the sea be wrested from their hands. And so 
they issued a decree that no one under penalty of death should there- 
after sail thither ; and lest the peril so much to be feared should be 
brought upon them by those already in occupation of this land, they 
either expelled or put to death all such as they could lay hold of." 
However, as this discovery was too great an acquisition to human 
knowledge, and too grand an element in human destiny to be entirely 
suppressed, the report of it did somehow transpire, and find its way 
to Greek schools of philosophy and the pages of the poet. If Herodotus, 
Aristotle, Strabo and Pliny say so little or nothing on so important a 
portion of the earth's surface, ignorance may not have been the sole 
motive for their reticence. To tell the Greeks who dare scarcely 
venture out of sight of land, of a country at the distance of forty days' 
sail from their homes, across an ocean overshadowed with darkness 
and whelmed with storms, as their mariners reported and their poets 
sung, would have been a useless waste of learning. But then these 
writers were not altogether silent on the subject ; their testimony will 
be introduced after we notice another objection that may be 
offered. 

This is, that if the knowledge of so great a fact once existed among 
men who wrote books, it would not have been lost. So far as this 
knowledge was committed to the books it has not been lost, excepting 
what may have been destroyed in the burning of the Alexandrian 
library. But that oral or traditional knowledge, when not used in 
daily employment, may readily be lost, we have already seen in its 
summary suppression by the Carthaginian Senate. Another notable 
instance is the discovery of New England by the Northmen in the 
tenth century 987, under Biarn, or if his voyage is discredited, then 
under Leif in the year 10 JO A. D.* These sea kings of Norway there- 
after for several years made frequent voyages and repeated attempts 
at a settlement, and all record of them wsCs buried in oblivion for 
eight hundred years until Rafn, scholar and antiquarian, discovered 
the narrative of the event in long forgotten manuscripts. 

* Gaffarel 2 : 304. Humboldt, Vol. I, Hist, da Nouveau Monde. 



4 Some Pre-Columbian Discoveries op America. 

The visit of the Welsh under Madoc in the twelfth century, 1170,* 
appears too well established also to doubt its authenticity, but it was 
generally forgotten until the close of the last century. The same fate 
attended the Irish discoveries, which were at no time known far out- 
side of the Irish nation. Time was when malleable glass was manu- 
factured, when bronze was hardened so as to rival the best steel of 
Sheffield, when painters knew how to make their pigments almost 
imperishable, but the knowledge of these processes was lost in the 
vicissitudes of wars and dying out of nations. Is it any more wonder- 
ful that the traditions of trans-oceanic countries (for it was only tradi- 
tion among the Greeks) should be remanded to the realm of myth and 
fable ? 

Another objection may occur to some minds : it is that there were 
then no vessels of sufficient size to survive the storms of the Atlantic 
passage. There is no real ground, however, to doubt the capacity or 
strength of the vessels of Tyre, Carthage, Greece or Rome to do this. 
Their track in any case would not be that of our ocean steamers in the 
North Atlantic, but first southwesterly, touching at the Madeiras and 
the Azores, and then across the gulf stream by the trade winds and 
mild weather to the West Indies. Besides, as a matter of fact, as we 
learn from the Periplus of Scylax, the Carthaginians carried their 
trading voyages by the Atlantic around the Cape of Good Hope, and 
brought back the spices of Borneo and Suuuitra and the riches of India. 
In the north they loaded their vessels with tin from the mines of Corn- 
wall. And the same may be said, and more emphatically, perhaps, of 
Tyre. "TheTyrian flag floated sinniltaneouslj^ in the British and 
the Indian seas." f For navigators so enterprising the only wonder 
would be if neither accident nor design led them some time in their 
wanderings to our shores. 

The Phoenicians occupied a narrow strip of land in what is now 
Palestine. They were an active enterprising people. They could not 
expand on the east, north or south, for the land was already occupied 
by warlike peoples. They were driven to find an outlet for trade and 
colonizing by the sea, and this course was well adapted to their ad- 
venturous spirit. Tyre was their great city and the center of their 
marine expeditions. The colony at Carthage was soon a rival in 
maritime trade and exploration. Strabo 17: 3, 8, says they pushed 
through the straits of Gibraltar and in time had three hundred flour- 
ishing cities on the west coast of Africa. Another colony is found on 
the northwest coast of Spain at Gades, now Cadiz, and from this port, 
a few miles from Palos whence Columbus sailed in 1492, probably 

•Humboldt Hist da Nouveau ]\tonde, Vol. I ; Powell's Hist, of Wales ; London Chronicle, 
1777 ; Williams' Enquiry. 
t Humboldt, Co.smos, Vol. II. 



Some Pre-Columbian Discoveries op America. 5 

sailed Phoenician ships to visit and perhaps colonize North and South 
America. It is well kown that they worked the tin mines Of the 
Azores (then called tlie Cassiterides or tin islands) and on one of these 
midocean islands have been found in modern times Phoenicians coins. 

In the high court of historical investigation even America niny be 
summoned to the witness stand. The Spanish conquerors of Mexico 
and Central America were told by the natives that their ancestors also 
were white people who came in ships across the ocean from the east 
and burned their vessels that none should return. They even said 
that the tradition had been handed down that in the fullness of time 
other people w^ere to come there from the lands of their forefathers 
in the east. Further evidence of these voyages will be given in citing 
various authorities as we proceed. 

Now let us summon our witnesses and decide if their testimony 
will not warrant more than a Scotch verdict upon the question. 

1, 2. Homer and his commentator Crates. Had Homer the oppor- 
turuty of knowung or learning anything of this event ? He lived about 
900 B. C. and at that time Egypt had enjoyed a high civilization for 
at least a thousand years, and the great pyramid of Cheops had then 
been standing probably a still longer period. Phoenicia had existed as 
a nation for live or six hundred years. Whatever they achieved by 
dint of discovery the Egyptians some how found out, for they sooner or 
later learned the secrets of all other nations whether of mechanics, 
science or art. From Greece it was a short journey to Egypt and 
communication frequent. Now, Homer says in the Odyssey :* "But 
he (Neptune) had gone to the Ethiopians who dwell afar off (the 
Ethiopians who are divided into two parts, the most distant of men^ 
some at the setting of the sun, others at its rising) in order to obtain a 
hecatomb of bulls and lambs." A frequent explanation of this is, 
that Homer referred to the Ethiopians as dwelling on the east and 
west banks of the Nile. All of the African continent known to Homer, 
however, was the two divisions of Egypt and Lybia, embracing all 
the northern portion from the Red Sea to the Atlantic, and south of 
these lay an Ethiopia the topography of which was then utterly un- 
known. To say that the two divisions of the Ethiopians occupied 
simply the Nile basin south of the twenty-fifth parallel of latitude 
hardly answers the description above given, setting them apart as far 
as the rising is from the setting sun. The grammarian and philo- 
sopher Crates, so often cited as high authority by Strabo,t interprets 
Homer to mean that it was the ocean which separated the two great 
divisions of the Ethiopians, the eastern in Africa and the western in 

*Book 1:22-25. 
t Strabo 1. 



6 Some Pre-Columbian Discoveries op America. 

Atlautis, or the Hesperides, as the unknown world to the west was 
varioasly called. Pliny* also locates the western Ethiopians some- 
where in the Atlantic. All this is vague enough, but the fact remains 
that nine hundred years before the Christian era the Greek poet, in 
the opinion of the learned Crates believed in the existence of a con- 
tinent on the western shore of the Atlantic. 

3, 4. Solon the great legislator of Athens, born about 638 B. C, and 
Plato, born 429 B. C. These are grouped together because all we have 
of Solon on this subject was transmitted to us in the writings of Plato. 
Plato says in his Timaeus, (chapter VI) : " That sea (the Atlantic ocean) 
was indeed navigable and had an island fronting the mouth which 
you in your tongue call the Pillars of Hercules [i. e. the Strait of Gib- 
raltar] ; and this island was larger than Libya and Asia put together ; 
and there was a passage hence for travellers of that day to the rest of 
the islands, as well as from those islands to the whole opposite continent 
that surroutids the real sea.'' This statement was the communication of 
one of the priests of Sais in Egypt to Solon and by Plato put into the 
mouth of Critias in the dialogue. The statement thus sets forth that 
there was a large island called the Atlantis opposite the Straits of Gib- 
raltar and other islands about it, and beyond all to the westward a 
great continent. The priest goes on to say that 9000 years before 
that time (of about 600 B, C.) the men of Athens resisted an immense 
incursion of the allied kings of Atlantis and their armies that had 
come to subdue Europe, and put them to flight. That most of the 
Greeks and all of their enemies were immediately after the victory 
swallowed up by deluge and earthquake and simultaneously Atlantis 
disappeared beneath the ocean. The whole story of this Atlantis is 
probably a myth invented by the Egyptian priest to flatter Solon and 
his countrymen. At the same time there might well have been an 
Atlantis occupying the vast interoceanic space in which are included 
the Canary, Madeira, Cape Verde, and Azores islands as well as 
innumerable islets and rock ledges scattered all through that space 
to-day. And these islands all bear traces of cataclysms and of sink- 
ing in some former ages. They contain active volcanos and volcanic 
rocks and basaltic formations, while they also contain layers of prim- 
ary rock such as form the structure of other mountains. In case of a 
submergence of such a vast territory the mountain tops would remain 
as islands to mark the course of former mountain chains. But the 
w'eak point in the story is the time — 9000 years before 600 B. C. and 
Athens even then a large and powerful city. We know that is impos- 
sible. And the ocean and its islands are all the same now as when 
the Tyrian keel plowed the waves and touched at one group after 

* Pliny 6: 31-86 



Some Pre-Columbian Discoveries op America. 7 

another of these islands on their* way across the sea. But sifting out 
the mythical we come back to that great continent bordering the ocean 
to the west. Or perhaps after all the Phoenicians had reported that 
the land they visited had sunk, so as to prevent others going there. 

5. Cominer down the stream of time we find another statement from 
Anaxagoras (Humboldt Hist. Vol. 1 ) born B. C. 500, in a fragment pre- 
served by Simplicius. In this he speaks of another grand division of 
the world beyond the ocean, as if he believed in its real existence and 
not as a poetic myth or a fancy of the imagination. He was one of 
the most eminent of the Greek philosophers and had among his pupils 
Pericles, Euripides and Socrates. 

6. Theopompus an eminent Greek historian whose works have been 
lost, was born about 380 B. C. iElian, however, in his Variae Historiae 
(lib. 3, cap. 18), cites from this writer a statement that the Meropians 
inhabit a large continent beyond the ocean, in comparison with which 
the known world was but an island. As ^lian tells the story, other 
things fabulous or mythical are mingled with it, so much as to lead 
many to discredit the whole. But human experience teaches us that 
in former times and even to within two hundred years, writers were 
often inclined to add something marvellous to a substratum of truth. 
There is many a strange, not to say impossible wild beast credited to 
our shores by its first explorers, in text and picture, whose existence 
subsequent exploration failed to confirm. 

7. There are two passages from Aristotle which may be introduced 
here. The first is from his treatise on the world (chap. 3) where he 
says : " The whole habitable world consists of an island surrounded 
by an ocean called the Atlantic. It is probable, however, that many 
other lands exist opposite to this, across the ocean, some less, some 
greater than this, but all except this invisible to us." The second 
quotation is from his treatise on wonders (a work attributed to him 
but may be by another) : He says (chapts. 84, 85) : " Beyond the 
pillars of Hercules they say that an uninhabited island was discovered 
by the Carthaginians, which abounded in forests and navigable rivers 
and fruits of all kinds, distant from the ^continent many days' sail ; 
and while the Carthaginians were engaged in making voyages to this 
land, and some had even settled there on account of the fertility of the 
soil, the senate decreed that no one thereafter, under penalty of death, 
should voyage thither, and they caused to be put to death all of the 
settlers lest they should reveal its existence to other nations." Aris- 
totle was born 384 B. C, and we all know his words are worthy of a 
respectful consideration. 

8. Diodorus of Sicily, who lived in the century preceding the Chris- 
tian era, agrees with Aristotle in these statements in the main, but he 



8 Some Pre-Columbian Discoveries of America. 

says that it was the Phoenicians instead of the Carthaginians (Book 
5 : 19, 20) who were cast upon a most fertile island opposite Africa, 
where the climate was that of perpetual spring, and that the land was 
the proper habitation for gods rather than for men. He speaks of 
the continent, however at length and with great detail, enumerating 
its fertile valleys and many navigable rivers, its rich and abundant 
fruits and supply of game, and its valuable forests and genial clim- 
ate. This must have referred to Mexico or Central America. After 
mentioning its discovery by the Phoenicians, who, in one of their voy- 
ages, were accidentally driven to the shores of the new continent by a 
storm of several days' duration, he says : " Being the first who were 
acquainted with its beauty and fertility, they published them to other 
nations The Tuscans when the}' were nmsters of the sea, designed 
to send a colony thither, but the I'arthaginians found means to prevent 
them ; on the one hand they were afraid lest their own citizens 
temi)ted by the charms of that island, should pass over thither in too 
great numbers and desert their owai country ; on the other hand they 
looked upon it as a secure asylum for themselves, if ever any terrible 
disaster should befall their republic." This account of Diodorus dif- 
fers from that of fciolon enough to lead us to believe his sources of 
information were also different. If the Tuscan or Etrurian or Tyrrhe- 
nian people (as they were variously called) in the west and central 
portions of Italy were such navigators as is here intimated by Dio- 
dorus, we may well suppose the information came to the Sicilian his- 
torian from this nation through channels now unknown to us. 

9. Statins Sebosus, as cited by Pliny (Vol. II, p. 106, Bohn), says that 
the two Hesperides are forty-two days sail from the coast of Africa. 
But little is known of this writer, save that he was a Roman and a 
geographer, who lived probably in the first century before the Chris- 
tian era. The passage in Pliny referred to is somew^hat obscure in 
other points, but the statement above given is sufficiently clear. It i.s 
probable that the two Hesperides here mentioned were Cuba and 
Santo Domingo. 

10. The next citation is the famous one of Seneca in his Medea, 
where the chorus closes the second act, and begins with celebrating 
the daring of the earliest voyagers who sailed out into the unknown 
seas l)efore even they had learned to direct their course by the stars ; 
then, when the Argonauts returned in triumph, the ocean lost its ter- 
rors, and men had no need to ask Minerva to construct another Argo. 
Thenceforth they built their own ships, and sailed them whither they 
would. Then the chorus ends with the following prediction : "In 
later years an age shall come, when the ocean shall relax its bonds 
and a great continent (leJlus) shall be laid open, and new lands 



Some Pre-Columbian Discoveries of America. 9 

revealed ; and Thule shall not then be the remotest land known on 
earth." Seneca was born a few years before the Christian era, and 
was familiar with Greek literature, as well as a traveller in Greece and 
Egypt. The formal and dignified manner in which this passage was 
introduced, and its lofty tone give it a weight and importance it 
would not possess, as Humboldt observes (Hist, etc., Vol. 1 : 165) had it 
been uttered as a mere geographical conjecture. The language is 
surely bold enough to warrant us in believing that the poet here utters 
a prophecy, not of a first discovery, but of a re-discovery of a lost 
continent. 

11. Plutarch born about 40 A. D. was distinguished not only as a 
historian but as a man versed in all the philosophy and science of his 
day. In his book of Morals he runs through the scale of human 
knowledge and speculation in all things material, moral and intellec- 
tual. In the treatise on the moon in this work he speaks with knowl- 
edge that can only have been derived from the experience of some one 
who had actually witnessed the scenes he describes. The story with 
all the accessories no one pretends to believe. As I understand it, he 
weaves a story about a substratum of fact — much the same as Gen. 
Lew Wallace relates the Spanish Conquest of Mexico in his charming 
story of " The Fair God." Stripping the account of the mythological, 
he states that there was an island at a distance of five day's sail west- 
ward from Britain ; beyond that also to the west lay three other islands 
with about the same distance between them, and beyond the most 
remote at the distance of 5000 stadia or about 575 miles lay a great 
continent bordering the Atlantic ocean on the west. Furthermore, the 
visitors of that region observed that for thirty days the daily disap- 
pearance of the sun lasted only about one hour. That is a phenom- 
enon so far beyond ordinary reasoning that it could have been known 
only by experience. It also locates the coast visited to be that of Lab- 
rador. It is not essential to Plutarch's knowledge of these facts that 
it was the Greeks, as he narrates, who visited those regions. The 
point is, that some ships from the eastern continent went there, and for 
my part, I do not quite believe that they were from Greece. Now, 
can we identify these islands with their distances ? About 600 miles 
northwest of Scotland lie the Faroe Islands, and this distance could 
have been made in five days by the ships of antiquity. Still north- 
west at about the same distance from the Faroe Islands lies Iceland, 
and beyond that at the same distance is Greenland. But Plutarch 
says that beyond the first island reached in the westward course lie 
three islands. What is the third ? I am inclined to think it was 
simply the southern extremity of Greenlaiid itself, which puts out as 
a long extended cape to the south. We do not look for the exactness 



10 Some Pre-Columbian Discoveries of America. 

of modern scientific work in the science of antiquity — or if we do, 
we do not find it. Still to the westward at a distance varying from 
500 to 600 miles, according to location, we come to the coast of Lab- 
rador where the same phenomenon is witnessed of the summer sun for 
thirty days remaining but an hour below the horizon. Now all this is 
too strange for invention and too true to be dismissed with a shrug. 
We are compelled to acknowledge that Plutarch was here detailing the 
actual experience of seaman from Europe, Asia or Africa in their ad- 
venturous voyages across the sea to the American continent. 

12. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, born in the first century B. C. is 
justly regarded as high authority in the province of history. Twenty- 
two years of his life were spent in study at Rome. In his comment on 
the so-called myth of Theopompus before mentioned, he gives his be- 
lief that the land of the Meropians is a great continent across the 
Atlantic (Humboldt Hist. 1 : 205), while the land he himself in- 
habited was but an island in comparison. Perizonius, an eminent 
Dutch scholar of the seventeenth century, in a note on this story, says : 
*' I do not doubt that the ancients knew something of America some- 
what as through cloud and smoke, in part from reasoning on the form 
of the earth and location of the different lands, ^lian, Var. Hist. 
Ed. Ludg., 1701, p. 217. 

13. The next witness to a general feeling pervading the writers 
and thinkers of antiquity that an extensive continent lay westward of 
the Atlantic, is Strabo, born in Cappadocia just before the Christian 
era, as one of his books was written A. D. 18. He says. Book 1 : 4:6: 
" But it is quite possible that in the temperate zone there may be 
two or even more habitable earths, especially near the circle which is 
drawn through Thinae (i.e. Athens) and the Atlantic ocean. " And 
again in Book 2, chapter 5, sect. 13, he says : "It belongs to another 
science to give an exact description of the whole earth, and of the 
entire vertebra of either zone, and as to whether the vertebra in the 
opj)osite quarter of the earth is inhabited. That such is the case is 
most probable, but not that it is inhabited by the same race of men 
as dwell with us. And it must be regarded as another habitable earth." 

By the term vertebra here he means a zone or belt of the earth pass- 
ing around it east and west between the parallels perhaps of 24° and 
.54° north latitude. Strabo does not here narrate an explorer's ex- 
perience, but as a scientist he says virtually, "you may hear of per- 
sonal visits to the antipodes, — do not look upon it as absurd — it is all 
right, getitlemen — science and analogy both accord with this and 
make it probable that there are other lands beyond the ocean, whether 
you have heard of them or not. " 

14, 15. Pomponius Mela, the Roman geographer, born in Spain about 



(Some Pre-Columbian Discoveries of America. 11 

the middle of the first century A. D., at the close of his fifth chapter 
of his third book, " De Situ Orbis," has the following language : " What 
was beyond the Caspian Sea in former times was unknown ; whether 
the same ocean, or a land of perpetual winter {infesta frigorihus) ex- 
tending onward without end. But besides the geographers (physicos) 
and Homer, who said the whole earth was surrounded by water, Cor- 
nelius Nepos, a later writer, and therefore more accurate, produces Q. 
Metelliis Celer as a witness, and states that the latter related the fol- 
lowing incident : that when he (Metellus) was proconsul in Gaul (in 
B. C. 63), certain Indians were sent to him as a gift from the King of 
the Batavi ; upon inquiring from whence they had come, they answered 
that they had been driven by storms from the shores of India, over the 
intervening ocean until they had landed on the coast of Germany." 
Of course the name India counts for nothing in this story, as all terri- 
tory east of Central Asia was India to the geographers of that day. 
The probability is, however, that these accidental visitors of Europe 
were driven thither from the northeastern coast of America. It is one of 
those incidents that show the continual possibility of passage from one 
continent to the other whenever men ventured out upon the ocean. At 
a museum in Aberdeen there is yet preserved a canoe which was picked 
up near the coast of Scotland by a passing ship. When found it con- 
tained an Esquimau still alive and surrounded by his fishing gear.* 

In his History of the Canary Islands, Captain Glass relates that a 
small bark bound from Lancerota to Teneriffe was forced out of her 
course and obliged to run before the wind until she came within two 
days' sail of Caraccas, where she met with an English cruiser, which 
relieved her distresses and directed her to the port of Laguayra, on 
that coast. Another instance is mentioned by Gumilla, a Spanish 
missionary to South America. He says that in December, 1731, while 
he was in the town of St. Joseph, Trinidad, a small vessel belonging to 
Teneriffe, with six seamen, was driven westward across the ocean to 
that island by stress of weather. All these establish the possibility of 
communication between the two continents, and relieve the question of 
all a priori presumptions against such an oceanic passage by ancient 
vessels. 

16. There is but one more passage we propose to introduce, and that 
is from the Bible. Not that it is absolutely of certain application to 
the question in discussion, but at least there is a very curious coinci- 
dence. At the very time our secular histories lead us to believe the 
Tyrians were trafficking with America, the vessels of Hiram (1 Kings, 
9 : 28, and 10 : 22, and 2 Chron., 3 : 6) are said to bring four hundred 
and fifty talents of gold from Parvaim. Here is a word which is not 

* Southall's Recent " Origin of Man," and other authorities. 



12 ISoME Pre-Columbian Discoveries op America. 

of Semitic origin, so entirely foreign to the Hebrew language that 
Gesenins finds no root for it, nor any congeners in that tongue, and is 
obliged to make a guess at a Sanscrit derivation. The pointing of 
the Hebrew Bible, or supplying the consonants with the proper vowel 
points, is, as is generally known, of comparatively modern date. And 
a slight change in this respect, while preserving all the consonants, 

will give a striking result. Instead of reading Parvaini D *! T j i3^ 
if we take a i^eading quite as regular and natural □ 7. "H H ?3 Pruim, 

•" — Si 

we have the regular plural of Peru, a form consistent with our theory, 
and also with Hebrew usage, as in that language the names of 
couiitries are frequently found in the plural. 

There is no reason whatever why the second reading is not quite as 
likely to be the true one as the first. If the word were a verb or an 
ordinary adjective, the pointing would be fixed by the adjective or 
verbal form, and what all scholars would assent to at once. But that 
of a proper name, and of one too that is used but once in the Bible, is 
not beyond the possibility of rearrangement. These vessels of Hiram 
are said to have occupied three years on a voyage, or to have come once 
in three years, and there is no impossibility in there reaching Peru by 
sailing around the Cape of Good Hope and, then eastward to the 
American coast. As to the origin of the name of Peru the early 
►Spanish writers generally receive it as the native name of the country* 

There is another portion of South America which may be designated 
by Parvaim.* There are two gold-bearing rivers, the Paru and the 
Apu Paru, or in the plural the Paruim, which form the Ucayali and 
another Paru also flowing from the mountains of Guiana, all of which 
send their waters into the Amazon. By another curious coincidence 
the Amazon in a portion of its course is called the River of Solomon. So 
that there is a fair basis for the theory that South America, either on the 
western or eastern coast furnished Solomon with gold for the temple. 
If this (continent was not the source of the precious mineral, it would 
be difficult to fix upon any other portion of the earth abounding in 
gold that would require three years for completing the voyage of the 
ships of Tyre. 

Here I would introduce a side-light from a modern traveller. There 
is one very singular monument pictured in Squier's work on ancient 
Peru. Over an archway or a fiat lintel of an old temple or on one of 
the door-posts on one side (I cite from memory), there is a sculptured 
figure of a winged globe. Now that figure is never found in the sculp- 
tures of Central America nor of any other nation on the American 
continent. Nor is it a Greek, Roman, or Assyrian symbol. It is 

•Gaffarel. D^couverte d'Am^rique, 1: 98. 



Some Pre-Columbian Discoveries op America. 13 

Egyptian pure and simple. But the ancient Egyptians never carried 
it there ; they never dared to venture out of sight of land. But the 
Phoenicians went every where. They might have seen it in Egypt, 
and one of their workmen must have reproduced it, in the remote lands 
of Peru, with or without understanding its significance. 

Here then is the testimony of sixteen witnesses, not as to what they 
saw, but to what they learned from all their sources of information, and 
all agreeing on one point. It is true that so far as the written testi- 
mony is concerned, it may come chiefly from one source, and that is 
Egypt, but for centuries Egypt was the center of all learning — the 
schoolmaster of the world. Perhaps it is not too much to expect that 
monuments will yet be found in Asia Minor or America that may re- 
veal mysteries that now surround the transatlantic voyages of the 
Phoenician fleets. At all events, the evidence of such voyages is of 
good authority and cumulative — the strongest that can be offered in 
support of historical events. The universal tradition of a deluge ac- 
companied with the salvation of the occupants of an ark, makes it 
highly probable, if there were no other reasons, that all the present 
inhabitants of the earth are descended from Noah. In that case 
America must have been peopled from the eastern continent. It would 
appear from other sources that one or more streams of emigration came 
hither by way of Behring's strait, and at least two, ^t different eras, 
across the Atlantic. But this question is too large a one to discuss at 
this time, as well as beyond its scope. 



14 .SOiME Pre-Columbian Discoveries of America. 



yECOND Paper. 

LATER PRE-COLUMBIAN DISCOVERIES OF AMERICA. IRISH, 
NORTHMEN, WELSH, ITALIAN AND FRENCH. 

By Georgij; Rogers Howell. 

[Read before the Albany Institute, October, 1893.] 

A secret wrested from the domain of nature i-f not published and uti- 
lized may soon drop into oblivion to be discovered again by accident 
or enterprise in after ag-es. We often speak of the stream of life — for 
the last four hundred years it has been a torrent that has swept into 
almost oblivionjnany a fact in human history. The records of the 
struggle of man with the forces of nature are now often only to be 
found buried in books rarely seen except in the largest libraries, 
written in a language long dead or in one spoken by a small remnant 
of a once powerful nation. We in this day live at a high pressure. 
It is the age of steam and in transition to the age of electricity. We 
seek to subdue and control all known forces, to create new forces, and 
to dominate nature in every field, first for self, and secondarily for the 
world. We care little for the story of the missionary labors of the 
Culdees of Ireland or for the fine-spun discussions of Greek philoso- 
phy. We care most to learn of a new scheme to convert to-day a 
five dollar bill into a ten to-morrow. We live also in the age of gold 
as well as in the golden age in its broadest sense as compared with any 
other period of human history. But I wish this evening to go back 
into the past and ascertain what men have done on the ocean with 
frail structures, small mechanical skill and less science, but with 
an irresistible fervor and daring, and spurred on by religious zeal or 
political outlawry. 

I mention first the Irish discovery of America. Some of the accounts 
of Irish voyages to lands lying to the west of their native islands in 
the Atlantic are so shot through and through with the fabulous as 
to be rejected altogether. Indeed in order to believe that they ever 
came to this continent it must be shown that they were a race of suffi- 
cient enterprise and ability, and had the means to cross the ocean and 
a motive that led them to the attempt. 

*As to the race, they are described to have been a thousand years 
ago, a restless, energetic people, proud of their independence and 
quite ready to brave the perils of the sea in their enterprises. If, as 

*Ga£Farel. D6couv6rte d'Am^rique 1 : 238 and following. 



Some Pre-Columbian Discoveries of America. 15 

probable, there was a mixture of Phoenician blood in their veins, these 
traits of character were honestly inherited. As to the means of navi- 
gation, they had the half decked vessels of the period, propelled by 
sails or oars as the weather served, and reinforced by an extra sheath- 
ing of ox hide. They at least could -float even if they lacked the speed 
of the modern ocean steamer. After Christianity pervaded the island, 
Irish missionaries went through all Europe in their zeal to convert the 
world. And when schisms in the church brought upoia them persecu- 
tion from their brethren in England and Scotland, they fled to the 
islands to the north. From there still later they were driven by the 
Northmen to the Faroe Islands, and when their new enemies reached 
this refuge also, they pushed out to sea until they found a new home in 
Iceland. These navigations include a period from the sixth to the 
ninth century. Both the Irish historian Dicuil and the old Icelandic 
Landnamabok, or book of land acquisitions, relate that when in the 
latter part of the ninth century the Northmen first visited Iceland, they 
found living there a Christian people called the Papas, a name well 
known to have been synonymous with the Culdees of Ireland. Dicuil 
says that some monks who had lived in Iceland told him that for some 
days both before and after the summer solstice the sun disap- 
peared for only a very short time below the horizon, and that if a man 
were on a mountain he would not lose it from view at all. This estab- 
lishes the fact that they were at least in the latitude of Iceland. 
Furthermore the accounts always mention a westward direction in all 
their departures from one discovered point to another. 

But the Papas still retreated before the invasions of the Northmen. 
They left their Thule or Iceland, as they had left the Faroe Islands. 
Where could they go now ? Behind them to the east were their perse- 
cutors. To the north they had already explored, and at the distance 
of a day and a half sail they had found a frozen sea. They could 
only turn their prows once more to the westward and commend them- 
selves to the care of Providence. And in that direction they found a 
new land which on account of its extent they called Ireland the Great 
(Irland it Mikla), and this time they endeavored to keep the secret of 
its existence to themselves. But the Northmen hung on their tracks, 
and it is from the Sagas that we first learn of their settlement in the 
new world. Gaff'arel 1 : 273, says of this account as follows : " Three 
Icelandic works speak of Ireland the Great. The first is the Landnam- 
abok or book of the taking possession of Iceland. It is a genealogical 
history, accurate and positive, of the principal Icelandic families from 
the tenth to the thirteenth century. It was composed by Are Thor- 
gilsson, surnamed Frodhe or the Wise, and completed by five other 
historians or genealogists. Are Frodhe lived from 1067 to 1148. Here 



16 Some Pre-Columbian Discoveries op America. 

is what he says of his great grandfather, Are Marsson :* Are son of 
Mar and Torkatla, was driven by a storm to Hvitraniannaland [or 
Whitemans land, or hmd of men in white] which some call Irland it 
Mikla. This country is situated westward in the sea, near Vinland 
the Good, and, it is said at six days sail from Ireland. This report 
was first made by Hrafn Hlymreksfare, who had for a long time dwelt 
in Limerick, Ireland. Torkell Gellisson reported also that some Ice- 
landers said that they had learned form Thorlinn, Earl of the Orkneys, 
that Are was recognized in Hvitraniannaland, and that he was not 
permitted to leave there but that he was treated with honor." " Here 
now," Gaffarel goes on to say, "An Icelander Are Marsson was driven 
by a tempest to a country where he was well treated, but forbidden to 
return to his native land. The report of his adventures however was 
spread abroad, and it was two Icelanders, Hrafn and Torkell Gellisson 
who transmit it to the compiler of the Landnamabok. Furthermore 
this Hrafn who lived a long time in Limerick in Ireland, received his 
account from Irish voyagers returned from Hvitraniannaland ; as to 
Torkill Gellison, he was the paternal uncle of Are Frodhe. He had 
travelled much, learned much, and imparted much to his nephew. In 
fine he relied much on the testimony of the Earl or Duke of the Ork- 
neys, that is to say, of a country colonized by the Irish Papas, and who 
doubtless had preserved some relations with the other colonies founded 
by these same Papas. From this earliest testimony it seems therefore 
to be settled that the Irish colonists had occupied an extensive country 
situated to the west, and that they prevented all voyagers whom 
chance or storm had driven there from returning to their own country." 
Further on Gafferel goes on to say : j " A third 8aga, that of Thor- 
finn Karlsefne, compiled from one or more of the narratives of the 
Northmen who discovered Vinland, includes a passage of the highest 
importance in regard to the settlement of the Irish in the new world. 
It is there stated, that some years after the year 1000, Thorfinn and 
his companions, after they had passed three years in Vinland, that is 
to say, as we shall prove later on, in America, as they were returning 
to Greenland, they found on their way five Skroellings or Esquimaux. 
X ' One of them was bearded and there Avere two women and two child- 
ren. Karlsefne's men carried off the children while the rest escaped 
and disappeared under ground (that is, in the usual snow huts of that 
region). These children learned the language of the Northmen and 
were baptized. They said the name of their mother was Vetthilde 
and their father Uvaege. They stated that two kings governed the 

* Landnamabok, pt. 2, § 22, Islandina Sagne, pp. 129, 130. 
t Gafferel. D^couverte d'Am^rique, 1 : 277. 
t Rafn. Antiquitates Americana;, p. 182. 



Home Pre-Columbian Discoveries op America. 17 

Skroelings, one named Avalldama and the other Valldidida ; that there 
were no houses in their country, and the inhabitants passed the night 
in caves or tunnels ; that another great country situated opposite theirs 
was inhabited by a people who marched clothed in white with uplifted 
voices and bearing before them standards to which banners were 
affixed. It is thought that this land was Hvitramannaland or Ireland 
the great.' " After this quotation. Gaffarel goes on to say : " Who 
are these people clothed in white unless the Papas, or their descendants 
who had remained faithful to the costume of Columba ?* As to the 
standards with their banners, and the loud chants that had struck the 
imagination of the little Skroellings, is it not easy to recognize here a 
sacerdotal procession and churchly chants which the Papas had con- 
tinued in their new possessions ? " 

These accounts seem to make it quite certain, with their incidental 
details of climate and geographical descriptions, that the Irish monks 
with their attendants of laymen and women, actually formed a settle- 
ment on the northern coast of America in the tenth century. Never 
very strong in numbers and not reinforced by accessions from the 
mother country, they probably at last succumbed to the attacks of 
the Esquimaux who at that time appear to have had occu'-tation of 
lands perhaps down to the latitude of Nova Scotia. 

The next discovery chronologically was that by the Northmen. In 
the year 861 a Northman pirate, Naddod by name, on a voyage to the 
Faroe Islands was driven northwest by a storm until he found himself 
by an unknown land. This was Iceland. The Northmen had already 
established themselves successively on the Orkneys, the Shetland and 
the Faroe Islands. In 874 a strong colony was settled in Iceland and 
it was soon made the basis for further discoveries. In 877 the snow- 
capped peaks of the eastern shores of G-reenland were seen by 
Grunnbjorn from his vessel, but he did not stop to explore, and on his 
return to Iceland mentioned his discovery, but the new land remained 
but a tradition for a hundred years. In 983, Eric the Red then living 
in Iceland, on account of man-slaughter was compelled to flee and 
turned his prow to the traditional islands to the west. He was so 
well pleased with his examination of the region that he returned to 
Iceland, and in 985 he again sailed westward with thirty-five vessels of 
colonists for Greenland, only fourteen of which however reached their 
destination. They formed there a little independent republic. It is 
probable that at that time a milder climate pi'evailed there than that 
of our day. It is well known that the laud of Greenland has been 
rising for centuries, and this is amply sufficient to account for the 

* This Columba adopted for himself and his associate Monks white flowing garments and 
was the pioneer of all the voyages of the Irish. 



18 Some Pre-Columbian Discoveries op America. 

greater severity of the cold and the consequent barrenness of the 
island at the present time. But the first Northman discoverer of the 
continent of America, Bjarn in 986 sailed from Norway to join his 
father Hariulf in Greenland. Violent winds carried him far out of 
his course to the southwest until he saw before him a low and well 
wooded coast, on which he did not land, inasmuch as he saw it bore 
no resemblance to that of Greenland. He skirted along this coast for a 
day and a half and then put to sea in a northeast direction for the 
residence of his father. After three days sail he discovered an 
elevated land thick with glaciers. He at length arrived in the bay 
adjoining the settlement w^here he was sharply criticised for not 
making a full exploration of the new lands. Here we have the narra- 
tive of land discovered at seven days sail southwest of Greenland, 
low and well wooded. This description could in no wise apply to 
Iceland. The narrative says that after they had turned their prow 
northward, the land they skirted for three days was on their larboard 
or to the left of them. Can we believe the narrative ? All that we 
can say is, that such is the story written before the birth of Columbus, 
and so far as we can judge, as credible as any other narrative of events 
of the distant part. 

The next voyage was from the west coast of Greenland in the year 
1000, undertaken by Leif, the son of Erie, to visit and ex})lore the new 
lands of Bjarn. In a single ship and with thirty-five men he set sail 
for the southwest, and in four days the land appeared. On exami- 
nation they found it barren and stony, and Leif named it Helluland 
or the land of stones. This may have been either the coast of 
Labrador or of Newfoundland, both of which correspond to the de- 
scription. As it offered no inducement for a settlement or trade they 
resumed their voyage southward, until another coast rose before them 
abounding in trees extending near the shore line. This he called 
Markland or the wooded land. This was probably Nova Scotia. Out 
onthe open sea again for two days when the Northmen again made 
land, and skirted along the coast, landing and exploring the bays and 
the forests along the shores. They were now on the coast of Massa- 
chusetts and Rhode Island where abundance of wild grapes were 
found. A German who was exploring the forests was the first to find 
these and reported the discovery to Leif. " Is that true, my foster- 
father?" said Leif. "Certainly," said Tyrker the German, "fori 
was born where there was no scarcity of grapes." This little incident 
is narrated here to show that it was grapes and not juniper berries as 
some authorities have suggested. From this fact of the abundance 
of the grape the country was called Vinland or the land of the vine. 
I have told an old story but the details were needed to establish a dis- 



Some Pre-Columbian Discoveries of America. 19 

covery. The scene of these discoveries could not have been G-reenland 
or any other land than one of the latitude of Massachusetts. The 
recognition of the grape by a German familiar with the fruit was 
enough to settle that question. But in addition to this the sagas re- 
late that in the shortest day of the year they had nine hours of day- 
light. This is true of the latitude of Massachusetts and Rhode 
Island, but not true of any section of the coast farther north. There 
was no chance for mistake in these two points. There was no motive 
for deception. They were recorded at least before 1395 when the 
Codex Flatoiensis containing accounts of the various visits to Vinland 
was finished. There w^as no rival claim as against a Spanish dis- 
covery, for Columbus was not then born. There was no great glory 
even in the discovery in the minds of the Northmen, for they were 
not strong enough in numbers to colonize and subdue it. In short 
there is a plain commonplace narrative of this discovery, attempts 
carried on for ten to fifteen years for settlement, and then abandoned. 
The Icelandic annals however, as Prof. Rafn has cited, show that 
voyages were made from time to time down to the middle of the 14th 
century from Iceland and Greenland to the continent to the south for 
timber, for fishing or for carrying the Christian religion to the natives. 
They left no permanent remains of dwellings for, as the Sagas relate, 
these were constructed of timber that were either burned by the 
Indians or suffered a natural decay before the landing of the Pilgrims. 
These sea rovers were as familiar with the northern seas almost as we 
are to day. They live in Iceland and they live in Greenland and 
they explore the circumjacent waters until an ice barrier to the north 
confronts them. They sail away — out on the ocean — they know the 
points of the compass as well as our modern sailors — and they know 
the Faroe Islands and all Europe, but they find another continent, 
and a part of it they call Helluland, another part Markland, and a 
third Vinland. Where is this continuous shore which they skirt day 
after day and explore and visit for 250 years, unless it is America ? 
We must either reject the Sagas entirely or accepted a dicovery by the 
Northmen. 

Now in this narrative I have followed one set of commentators on 
these voyages of the Northmen and not another, because all the facts 
seem better to harmonize with that theory. The other theories place 
the visits of the Northmen much farther to the north and regard Nova 
Scotia or Labrador as the Vinland of Eric and Thorfinn, while one 
authority [Mr. A. J. Weise] locates Vinland on the coast of Greenland. 
To this it is in my mind a conclusive objection that the Northmen 
were quite familiar with the northern ocean and the whole eastern and 
western coast of South Greenland and could not possibly have made 



20 Some Pre-Columbian Discoveries op America. 

so gross a mistake. One fact alone shows their knowledge of the 
northern seas. In 1007 a considerable number of Northmen under 
Thorfinn Karlsefne sailed from Southwest Greenland in three ships to 
establish another colony in Vinland. Soon after leaving port a strong 
current carried them northward until they came to what is now known 
as Davis Straits. Did they search for Vinland there ? No more than 
would a modern explorer. As soon as the wind arose they turned 
their ships to the southward until they found successively Helluland 
and Markland. 

There is another obscure point and that a very important one ; it is 
the proper interpretation of the phrase which Rafn and his followers 
translate so as to understand the statement to signify a period of nine 
hours of daylight on the shortest day of the year. It is hy some 
claimed to be capable of another interpretation which leaves the 
period uncertain as to the number of hours of daylight. In regard to 
this I prefer that interpretation which good Icelandic scholars give it 
and which is in harmony with every thing else in the narrative. 

We come now to a second discovery of America from the British 
Isles. On the death of Owen Gwyned, king of North Wales, his sons 
disputed for the inheritance of the crown. Rather than take part in 
this contention, Madoc, one of these sons, in the year 1170 prepared 
several ships and sailed away to the southwest, leaving Ireland far to 
the north, as the record says, until he came to a vast and fertile unin- 
habited coiintry. He was so well pleased with the discovery that he left 
some of his men in occupation and returned with the tidings to Wales. 
There he told his countrymen of the advantages of the new land 
across the ocean, contrasting its fertility and genial climate Avith the 
barrenness and vigors of Wales. He persuaded many of his people 
to accompany him, both men and women, and again set sail with ten 
ships for the western continent. One writer says he took back with 
him on this voyage 120 colonists. Where did these people make a 
settlement ? Hakluyt thinks in Yucatan because the Spaniards found 
great numbers of crosses in that region. Horn in his treatise on the 
origin of the American aborigines, p. 136, believes it was in Virginia 
on account of the indigenous traditions there current of a certain 
Madeczunga in which he finds the name of Madoc, and further from a 
resemblance of many Indian words there used to those of the Welsh 
language. Gafferal 1 : 299 maintains that it was Ireland the Great, 
or that region between Labrador and Canada. If the latter is correct 
we should expect some mention by Madoc in his reports of the discovery 
of the Irish there, or at least traces of a previous occupation, suppos- 
ing them at this time to have somehow disappeared. But he reports 
an uninhabited country. I think myself it was the coast of Virginia 



Some Pre-Columbian Discoveries op America. 21 

to which he came and that they expanded the settlement to the Caro- 
linas. He is reported to have sailed to the southwest, leaving Ireland 
far to the north. The following affidavit published in the London 
Chronicle of Aug. 2, 1777, taken from a work by Rev. N. Owen entitled, 
" British Remains, etc.," and published in the same year confirms this 
view. It is made by the Rev. Morgan Jones, a minister in the church 
of England. 

" These presents may certify all persons whatsoever, that in the 
year 1669, I being then an inhabitant in Virginia, and chaplain to 
Major-General Beimett, Sir William Berkeley sent two ships to search 
the place which then was called Port Royal, but now South Carolina, 
which is sixty leagues to the southward of Cape Fear ; and I was sent 
thither with them to be their minister. 

Upon the 8th day of April we set out from Virginia and arrived at 
the harbour's mouth of Port Royal the 19th of the same month ; 
where w^e waited for the rest of the fleet that was to come from Bar- 
badoes and Bermudas with one Mr. West, who was to be deputy-gover- 
nor of the said place. As soon as the fleet came in, the small vessels 
that were with us went up the river to a place called the Oyster-point 
for we durst not go up with the great ships because of the bar of sand 
that was before the harbour's mouth. 

After we were seated [i. e. settled], I staid therebetween seven and 
eight months till the 10th of November following; at which time, 
being almost starved for want of provisions, I and five more took our 
flight from thence, and travelled through the wilderness till we came 
to the Tuscarora country, where the Tuscarora Indians took us prison- 
ers, because we told them we were bound for Roanoake, for they 
then had wars with the English at Roanoake ; and they carried us 
into their town that night, and shut us up in a house by ourselves, and 
the next day held a Macchcomoco about us, which after it was over, 
their interpreter came to us and told us that we must fit ourselves to 
die next morning ; whereupon being something cast down, and speak- 
ing to this effect in the British (Welsh) tongue, " Have I escaped so 
many dangers, and must I now be knocked on the head like a dog ? ' 
An Indian came to me, who afterwards appeared to be a war-captain 
belonging to the Sachem of the Doegs (whose original I found must 
needs be from the Welsh) and took me up, and told me in the British 
(Welsh) tongue I should not die ; and thereupon went to the emperor 
of the Tuscaroras, and agreed for my ransom and the men that were 
with me, and paid it the next day. Afterward they carried us to their 
town, and entertained us civilly for four months ; and I did converse 
with them of many things in the British (Welsh) tongue, and did 
preach to them three times a week in the British tongue, and they 



22 iSoMB Pre-Columbian Discoveries of America. 

would usually confer with me about anything that was difficult to 
them ; and when we came from them they showed themselves very 
civil and courteous to us. 

They are seated upon Pantigo river, not far from Cape Atros. 
[Hatteras.J This is a recital of my travels among the Doeg [Madog] 
Indians. 

Signed, MORGAN JONES, 

the son of John Jones of Barsleg near Newport in Monmouthshire. 

New York, March 10, 1685-6. 

This is a case not of a few Indian words bearing a resemblance to 
some in the Welsh language, but of a Welshman having daily converse 
for months with these Indians and preaching to them in his native lan- 
guage many discourses which they perfectly understood. Other 
Welshmen have testified substantially to the same facts of hearing 
their own native language spoken by the Indians on the coast of 
Virginia and the Carolinas as their vernacular, and there appears to 
be no good reason for rejecting this concurrent evidence from both 
sides of the ocean. 

These Indians are reported to have been of a lighter color than others 
found in America. In the general migration of the tribes westward 
these people shared the common fate, and even now occasionally the 
newspapers report that white Indians are met with in the west, and 
their presence i.s a matter of surprise to those who are ignorant of the 
Welsh settlements. Of course these Welsh colonists as they sooner or 
later mingled and intermarried with the Indian races with whom they 
came in contact in the woods, away from civilization, and they had 
none too much when they came, gradually lost their European ways 
and were assimilated to their dusky neighbors. The mighty forces of 
nature in its wildest state took them to herself. Now have we any 
pre-Columbian records of this Welsh discovery ? Most assuredly. It 
was no after thought to rob Columbus of his laurels. The story is 
told at length by David Powel in 1584 in his history of Wales. But 
still earlier Meredith ap Rees in 1477 mentions the voyage of Madoc 
across the ocean. But the earliest account of this voyage is in the 
Welsh triads, a collection of poetry written in the twelfth century. 
These make mention of " Madoc the son of Owen Gwyned, who put 
out to sea with three hundred men in ten ships and who went no one 
knows where." I do not see any reason to doubt this narrative handed 
down in the Welsh histories and national ballads which date back to 
a pre-Columbian era, supported as it is by reliable testimony of corrob- 
orating circumstances in American history. 

We come now to the last pre-Columbian discovery of the western 
continent that has substantial evidence of support. It is that by the 



Some Pre-Columbian Discoveries op America. 23 

Venetian brothers Nicole and Antonio Zeno. The whole question of 
this discovery turns on the point of the veracity of three men, the two 
brothers I have mentioned and Nicolo Zeno, Jr., a descendant. 

In the year 1388 Nicolo Zeno to gratify a passion for adventure and 
sight-seeing, equipped a vessel and sailed from Venice northward, 
along the European coast, until after passing Scotland he arrived at 
the island of what he called Frisland, and which for reasons too long 
to be recited here was unquestionably one of the Faroe Islands. 
Here he entered into service or an alliance with the ruler of the islands 
and was made admiral of his fleet and received generous compensation 
for his assistance in the wars of conquest then in progress — (doubtless 
some of the proceeds of robbery of conquered enemies). From this 
island he wrote to his brother Antonio, giving him an account of his 
successes and urging him to come there also, to see the world and aug- 
ment his fame and fortune. Antonio accepted the opportunity. For 
four years the brothers were engaged in trade or wars in the service 
of Zichmni or Sinclair the ruler of Frisland. While on a visit to Green- 
land Nicolo died and Antonio succeeded to the honors and office of 
Nicolo and remained ten years longer in the service of the ruler of 
Frisland. Nicolo left a map of the lands he had visited and notes of 
his several voyages, which came into the possession of Antonio. And 
now the news of still other lands to the west came to Frisland. A 
Frisland fisherman reported that four fishing vessels were driven by a 
storm to an island called Estotiland over a thousand miles to the west 
of Frisland. After a residence of thirteen years on that island and a 
still larger one to the south of Estotiland called Drogeo he had returned 
to his native island with the riches he had there acquired. Fired by 
this report the ruler of Frisland at once prepared an expedition, and 
with Antonio set sail for the west. They apparently did not on this 
voyage go farther south than Estotiland or Labrador where they 
met with numbers of the Esquimaux as we infer from Antonio's 
description of the appearance of the natives. 

Antonio sent an account of this voyage as well as many other letters 
to his elder brother Carlo. These letters with a chart of the northern 
Atlantic and adjacent countries and islands are the only surviving 
original narratives of the Zeno brothers. They were preserved but 
lay neglected for generations until a descendant, Nicolo Zeno, Jr., dis- 
covered their importance, and in 1558 published what was left of them 
with the map of Nicolo and Antonio. The country named in the 
letters as Estotiland can be no other than Labrador, and Drogeo men- 
tioned by the Frisland fisherman as lying to the south of it, whether 
Nova Scotia or the United States or both, it is very difficult to decide. 
It is in any case said in the letters to be a vast continent. This voyage 



24 SoMK Prk-Columbian Discoveries op America. 

of Antonio was made in a year between 1396 and 1400. As I said 
before, the whole question of this discovery depends on the truth of 
the letters of the Zeno brothers, and whether the descendant Nicolo 
Zeno, Jr., published them as he fomid them, with no additions or falsifi- 
cations. They are generally regarded as authentic. The family was 
noble and wealthy — and though sometimes even such people have 
been known to strain the truth, still there is always force in the old 
adage, " noblesse oblige.''' The letters bear every mark of genuineness 
and that is much in their support — for it is seldom a fiction of this 
kind does not somewjiere betray itself. 

French Discovery. 
There is one other account of a pre-Columbian discovery which I have 
some hesitation to mention, but on which a possible side-light is 
thrown from an unexpected source. A Norman chronicler Desmarquets 
in 1788 published two small volumes entitled "Mumoiresde Dieppe," 
in which he mentions a voyage in 1488 of a Capt. Cousin from Dieppe 
for the west coast of Africa who was driven far out of his course until 
he found himself in the mouth of a large river of a continent to the 
westward of the Atlantic ocean. This was either the Amazon or 
the Oronoco. The narrative is not an original document cotemporary 
with the alleged discovery and therefore not entirely satisfactory 
evidence, and the original archives of Dieppe which would have con- 
tained mention of this voyage were buimed with the City Hall in the 
18th century. But Cousin's mate was named Pinzon, an able seaman 
but unscrupulous and treacherous, and on charges preferred and 
provsd was cashiered and dismissed from the French service. It is 
known that he went immediately into Spain and is supposed to be 
the same Martin Alonzo Pinzon who commanded one of the caravels 
of the fleet of Columbus. This man showed the same traits of 
character in his attempt to leave Columbus when nearing the coast of 
America, and again when he evaded his commander on the return 
voyage in a storm, and attempted to reach the port of Palos in ad- 
vance of Columbus. But his stopping to land a messenger with des- 
patches of the discovery to the King of Spain with the claim of success 
through his own efforts, caused him to arrive at Palos two hours after 
the triumphal entry of the admiral. And then his unfailing confi- 
dence in the expectation of finding land w'hen all but the leader were 
despondent, liis conferences with Columbus and encouragement of his 
almost mutinous crew, look more like the expectation of a re-dis- 
covery than of a first discovery. That is exactly the conduct we 
should expect of such a man, if, as conjectured, he was the same one 
who four years before with the Dieppe captain was on the coast of 



Some Pre-Columbian Discoveries op America. 25 

Brazil. So far as Norman and Breton sailors and maritime enterprise is 
concerned, there is no reason to doubt tiieir ability to liave visited this 
continent as they traded with Africa and made voyages far out to sea 
in search of whales. 

Here then are four, and possibly five, nations whose vessels solved 
the problem of the ocean and its unknown and mysterious western 
borders — solved the problem of the ages and knew not what they 
had done and the world was no wiser or richer for their deeds. The 
discoveries did not fail to be recorded, but the records became archives 
and as such we're safely stowed away out of human sight for generations. 
Di.l the echo of these discoveries reach the ear of Columbus ? Who 
can doubt it ? His journey to Iceland would have led his inquisitive 
spirit to the bishop's library at Ryckavick and the story of the North- 
men's visit to the western world would inevitably be learned. Did he 
mention this, or the report of a pilot or captain, or both, whose advent- 
ures on the ocean led them to know of the existence of a land to the 
west, when he undertook to convince monks, nobles, and sovereigns of 
a short route to India ? Not at all. He reasoned before them on the 
high plane of logic and mathematical geography — that the earth 
was a globe and that the riches of the Indies were nearer to Europe 
by way of the w-est than around the African continent. He at 
least never realized the extent of his discovery, for he died in the be- 
lief that the lands he had laid open to the world were but the eastern 
shores of Asia. But these futile discoveries I have mentioned in no 
wise detract from the glory of Columbus. His persuasive eloquence, 
his superior knowledge, and above all his tact, will-power and ability 
to manage men, carried him triumphavitly over every obstacle to the 
gates of a new continent and to all intents and purposes so far as 
adding to the sum of human knowledge he was its discoverer. 



